Archives for July 2011

Oh my goodness, I am almost getting buried in the harvest this summer! The garden in our little rental house is productive, which is surprising considering how little work it has been. The broccoli has all come on at the same time and I’m barely eating it before it completely flowers. Often I get asked to help people plan their vegetable gardens and I always

In Other Words is a great shop in Portland specializing in feminist literature and I am proud to have an event there this weekend! They are the feminist bookstore featured in Portlandia, which is a hilarious show in case you haven’t seen it yet. I will be there at 4:00pm this Saturday July 30th. I will have a few copies of the book to giveaway!

We found Milt a farm! Our drake, or male duck, is now spreading his love among a large flock of ladies living on a farm just south of Eugene. Whew! We were not looking forward to having him for dinner. I think Bess, Pepper, Gladys and Ramona are enjoying the peace and quiet. We are getting a steady supply of eggs already from both Gladys

Like a crazy woman, I went back to the local farm to u-pick more strawberries. Our cupboards are stocked with jam and I am getting tired of standing over the stock pot stirring. So this round I decided to just freeze them all – easy and versatile. I lightly rinsed the berries, since they can be little sponges and soak up excess water. I then

Our chocolate runner duck, Milt, needs to go. He is four months old and humping everything in sight! How do you wrestle being a modern feminist with the animal world? He will corner one of the ducks, bite the back of her head to keep her in place, then mount her. It doesn’t look fun, enjoyable or kind. It’s kind of a frustrating spectacle to

Typically I go a million miles an hour trying to balance roughly 10 things at once while standing on my head blindfolded. I am happy to report, however, that my summer break from school and work has led me to discover the off button. I am still doing little projects – writing, some book events, lots of volunteering – but I am for the most

Marmalade is similar to jam in texture, but typically they include some amount of fruit peel. In this case, I made a delicious batch of strawberry-lemon marmalade or, as my friend Behak described it, strawberry-lemonade in a jar. It tastes like I canned summer and I can’t wait to pop these suckers open in January when I’ve forgotten what the sun feels like. The original

Most years I completely miss strawberry season. It comes so early for us here in the Pacific Northwest that it is barely, sort-of-consistently-sunny when they are ripe. And after about three weeks, they are all but gone for the year. This year, however, I stayed organized enough to stay on top of the harvest season. I called around to several local farms offering u-pick berries

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Hello homesteader! I'm Renee Wilkinson and this is where I've chronicled my adventures in homesteading since 2007. Here you will find 1,000+posts on modern homestead projects, edible landscape design and the occasional life update. Read More…